Lover! Loved! Loving! John 16:13,14 1st Sun.A.Pentecost(Trinity) 5/30/10
Something old, something new! Sometimes it amazes me how old & new are mixed together.
This is an old, old Lutheran church that goes back to the turn of the century, but when it gets hot & humid in here, this old church has something it’s first worshippers never dreamed of. AC!
It reminds me of something in our living room at home. It’s a new floor lamp that adds to the mix of Victorian/Early American furniture in our parsonage living room. The floor lamp was a recent Christmas gift to my wife who loves old Victorian/Early American furniture. It’s a nice, straight, antique looking lamp with a single bulb that stands next to a big lazy boy-recliner where in the evening I like to sit & read the paper & other things. But antique-looking lamp that it is, it has a single light bulb that’s a three-way bulb which means it can be switched to three different levels of light. We didn’t have three way light bulbs back in the 50’s when I was growing up.
For leaving a light on when we’re not home, the light clicks on to 50 watts, low level light.
For sitting & talking; need some medium level light? The next click is 100 watts.
For reading at night or for seeing things on the floor or looking for something, a third click lights up a bright 150 watts.
One light bulb but three different levels of light, three varied experiences of light!
Isn’t it that way with love? Turn it on, first click, low-level, soft, easy-going, smiling, eye-catching, sweet-smelling, nice-to-be-around, I-think-I-like-you kind of love. Low energy love!
Then click again; a little brighter, a little stronger, a little more-than-passing-interest love. It’s what I would call love focusing in on; love to hear from a friend, love to read, love to garden, love to grow flowers, love to be with you, love to help, love to get something done, get something accomplished. This is a little more energy, more getting involved kind of love.
Then click, click, click, there’s high energy love. There is big, bright, bold, bigger-than-life, arms-wide-open, all-encompassing, all –knowing, unlimited, unconditional, unsurpassing, out-of-this world love. Not human love, but divine love.
The Bible says, “Faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love.”
So there is low-level love; there is focusing in on love; and there is bigger-than-life, arms-wide-open, all-encompassing love; these three, and the greatest of these, says 1 Corinthians 13, is bigger-than-life, arms-wide open, all-encompassing love, which is divine love, perfect love. The word in Greek is “agape” love, sacri-ficial, self-less love. It is the love Christians in many churches celebrate & give thanks for this Trinity Sunday, celebrating & giving thanks for God-Father-Son-and-Holy-Spirit “agape” love!
Now bear this in mind because this is important. We would none of us know the truth of this holy, perfect, divine, “agape” love; we would none of us know the realness, the fullness, the nearness, the richness, the abundance of God’s “agape” love, except the Lord Jesus Christ has made this unique unimaginable, unconditional, unconventional, unstoppable love known.
When the Spirit of truth comes, Jesus says in the Gospel reading for this Trinity Sunday; When the Spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
The Spirit will glorify me, for he will take what divine truth, what love, what grace, what peace, what forgiveness is mine and de-clare it to you. All that the Father has (truth, love, grace, peace, forgiveness) is mine; therefore I said that the Spirit will take what is mine and declare it to you.
The Father’s love! The Son’s love! The Spirit’s love. Not three loves, but one love! Not love as some kind of abstract ideal, but love that is real; love that is just as real as light from a light bulb is real and light can be seen & experienced & enjoyed as it shines on us, pushes back the darkness, helps us see, relaxes us, reassures us, works for us, is here for us.
So the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ is real and can be seen & experienced & enjoyed as it is love freely, unconditionally offered to us, lavished on us, and in Jesus Christ reaches us, values us, helps us, works for us, and is here for us!
Since we are gathered this Memorial Day Weekend in this old church in this Pioneer Village full of exhibits & things that can awaken old memories, a few years ago an entertainer named Reba McEntire brought back an old song that some earlier entertainers named Jo Stafford and Ella Fitzgerald, independent of each other, made famous in 1947, a song called “A Sunday Kind of Love.” I know a pastor who pays attention to old songs and he likes to say this is an old song that speaks to every generation because in every generation folks are crying out for a different kind of love than what they find in our culture: not a Monday love, or a Tuesday love, or a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday love and especially not a Saturday love, but a Sunday love.
The first two stanzas of this old song say:
I want a Sunday kind of love. A love to last, past Saturday night, I’d like to know it’s more than love at first sight, I want a Sunday kind of love.
I want a love that’s on the square. Can’t seem to find somebody to care. I’m on a lonely road that leads me nowhere, I need a Sunday kind of love.
What makes a “Sunday love” so special, so desirable, so yearned for?
It’s the kind of love at the heart of God’s Word & Sacraments in church on a Saturday evening nor a Sunday morning.
It’s the kind of love that we celebrate this Trinity Sunday.
An old, mournful, repetitious, southern-style spiritual song that’s in many Christian hymnals speaks of this love this way:
What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this That caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul!
Love that bears the dreadful curse of sin; love that leads the Son of God to be crucified on the cross for our sin; love that triumphs over sin & guilt -- that’s the perfect, selfless, “agape” love of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One in three; three in One!
Intense love! Incarnate love! Inspiring love! Not three loves, but one love!
Powerful love! Personal love! Practical love! Not three loves, but one love.
As God the Spirit declares to us the revelation of God the Father’s love thru God’s the Son’s love, may we be confronted, encountered, and brought to believing, hoping, loving - in the name of the God who is perfect love, “love divine, all love’s excelling,”, one love, one God, Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen
